The focus for the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) in 2016 was preparing for, and managing the 7th RWSN Forum in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, from 29th November to 2nd December with the title “Water for Everyone”. This was the first RWSN Forum to take place in a francophone country in the 25 years since the creation of the network.

Throughout 2016 specific in-country activities included a short-course on Procurement, Contract Management and Costing and Pricing in Zambia and a participative analysis of Manual Drilling in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Workshops organized by the World Bank in Bangkok and Lima on sustainable services drew together government agencies in both regions. Key lessons from both events fed into the RWSN Forum under the RWSN Theme “Sustainable Services”.

RWSN continued to work on strengthening the links between research and practice on groundwater by disseminating the outputs from UPGro (Unlocking the Potential of Groundwater for the Poor) research to the RWSN membership as well as fostering direct linkages between groundwater experts and water supply professionals.

The 2016 Rural Water Supply Network Forum in Abidjan was the first global gathering to consider the practical challenge of how everyone worldwide can get access to safe, affordable water by 2030. It was also the first RWSN Forum to take place in a francophone country, in the 25 years since the creation of the network.
The Forum gathered 467 rural water sector practitioners from over 300 organisations from 64 countries in Africa, Asia, Americas, and Europe, in a bilingual (English/French) four day event. It was opened by the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Mr Daniel Kaplan Duncan. We were joined by HE State Minster James Dengchol Tot, Minister of Water, Irrigation and Electricity of Ethiopia, as well as a delegation from AMCOW.

This Forum proceedings compiles all peer-reviewed materials. Separate downloads and links to the films can be found at: https://rwsn7.net/content/

This document introduces what water point data are, why they are collected, and how they are used in “The Value of Water Point Data”. The chapter “A Deep Dive: The Case of Uganda” illustrates the use and progressive improvement of water point data in a country that is actively updating and publishing its National Water Atlas.

“From Water Point Data to Improved Water Services” provides an overview of how water point data can be used more effectively to measure services and water resources, strengthen the enabling environment, and improve coordination. It also reviews some innovative approaches under development, such as the remote monitoring of water points. Finally, “Recommendations” provides actionable guidance to a) national governments, b) local governments, c) NGOs and implementers, and d) donors and investors.

This is the first consolidated and referenced multicountry study of Water or Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Joint Sector Reviews (JSRs). The study report and associated Learning Note and Poster provide an understanding of JSR processes and practical guidance on how to introduce and improve them. The study sets out a methodology in the form of visual checklists to reflect and take stock of WASH JSR processes. This could also form the foundation for subsequent cross-country comparisons of the JSR process.

The publications provide an analysis of JSRs as well as practical guidance on how to introduce and effectively manage them. The initial focus of the work was on JSRs in fragile states. However, the contested definitions of a fragile state, arbitrary thresholds as well as the realization that there are common issues with respect to JSRs in nonfragile countries led to a widening of the scope of countries studied. Notably, all countries included are considerably donor dependant for WASH. The study considered 25 countries, and found that between 2001 and 2015, WASH JSRs had taken place in 19 of them.

• An average of 78% of water points are functional across the 11 countries analyzed.

• The high failure rates early after installation are troubling: almost 15% after one year and 25% of water points are non-functional by their fourth year after installation. This indicates widespread problems with poor quality water point installation, due to a range of problems that may include professionalism and skills around contracts, construction and supervision; borehole siting; lack of quality control of hardware; or lack of post-construction monitoring and problem resolution.

• Handpumps are often singled out as technology that fails, but analysis of other water point types show similar functionality levels, and that tens of thousands of handpumps are providing a service

This poster was peer-reviewed and presented at the 7th RWSN Forum in Abidjan, Cote'Ivoire 2016.

Author: NDAW, M. F.
Year of Publishing: 2015
Publisher: The World Bank
Institution: Water & Sanitation Program

This knowledge product is a summary of ndings from the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) Study “Unlocking the Potential of ICT Services in the Water and Sanitation Sector”. e study builds on and complements the World Bank’s Africa Regional Strategy (2011) as well as the World Bank Group’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Strategy (2012). It further complements the E-Transform Africa series, a collaboration between the African Development Bank, the World Bank and the African Union, which captures the existing use of ICTs in six sectors (agriculture, climate change, education, health, nancial services, government) and two cross-cutting themes (regional trade and integration; ICT competitiveness).

Testing The Waters
A qualitative comparative analysis of the factors affecting success in rendering water services sustainable based on ICT reporting

The potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) services in improving service delivery is well recognised. In the water sector, there has been a growing interest in supporting the sustainability of services in recent years. The sector has also witnessed an increase in ICT initiatives, including those that aim to improve and sustain water services. While there are a number of reviews that document different water sector ICT initiatives, the existing literature does not systematically consider the individual initiatives’ success or failure. The objective of this research is therefore to better understand the factors that facilitate and inhibit the success of ICT-based reporting to improve rural water supply sustainability.

The first webinar reviewed the development of WPM over the past decade, focusing on Malawi, the first country in which the practice was introduced. The key presenters provided dual perspectives of NGO and government actors, which demonstrated the varied methodologies for reporting water supply data, the extent to which data monitoring has impacted decision making and its role in extending equitable and sustainable service delivery. Presentations and discussion assessed the practice, policy, tools and technologies of monitoring and WPM, following its evolution and bringing to question whether WPM is currently a practical and sustainable solution given the reality of resources and government capacities.

The fourth and final webinar in the RWSN Water Point Mapping series provided a candid account of the challenges with WPM that have led to failed objectives. There are, however, valuable lessons to be learned from those failures, and the experiences have provided useful models and contributed to improved knowledge and data banks. The webinar also discussed the future of WPM, including new models and initiatives to maximize the benefit of data monitoring and improve information accessibility and transparency.

This third webinar in the series explores the latest state-of-play in national level monitoring of rural water supply, which presentations also of country-led monitoring systems. In these systems, information is collected, analysed and used to inform decentralized resource allocation. Case studies of national monitoring models were reviewed to understand the approaches used in embedding the systems and processes required for maintaining accurate and timely rural water supply information. These case studies also demonstrate the impact monitoring has had on extending equitable and sustainable service delivery and provide key learning points.

Author: Government of the Republic of Liberia
Year of Publishing: 2014
Publisher: Government of the Republic of Liberia
Institution: Government of the Republic of Liberia

The Liberia Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Sector have accomplished a major achievement in releasing this first Sector Performance Report (SPR) covering the period 2013 to 2014. The outcome of this report is a clear demonstration of unity in the face of fragmentation. The responsibility of solving problems associated with water resource management, water quality, waste water and WASH are many agency-focused and cross-cutting as well as technical and political.

The mapping topic was created in August 2012 and has rapidly established as a strong visible element of the rural water supply network. The main component of the mapping topic is the Dgroups platform, which enables members to discuss technical, policy and management issues around water point mapping, monitoring and reporting. Members share data, analysis, insight and knowledge from mapping activities including the indicators, approaches, methodologies, technologies, and mechanisms for sustaining inventories. The group works towards making data available and accessible to all stakeholders, developing the environment where data can be used to inform resource allocation and planning decisions, and monitoring the improvements in equitable and sustained access to rural water supply.

In May and June 2014 the mapping group discussed a range of issues and shared various country specific knowledge, data and research. Key discussions on measurable indicators, GPS accuracy, water point monitoring, pump functionality, and effectively using data are summarised below. Group members discussed the potentials and pitfalls of technologies to collect, update, and share data, and highlighted the importance of resilient processes in all areas of water point mapping and updating data. Members raised the necessity of standardising indicators and better using and sharing data across the sector.

This synthesis aims to present points made in the group discussions and consolidate them within thematic areas, but does not seek to draw conclusions from the content.

Accurate information on water points is critical in order to provide sufficient data for planning and budgeting. Clarity of data means that it can be used to identify priority areas for investment as well as ensuring sustainability of existing water point infrastructure. However, data needs to be kept up to data if it is to be useful.

The main purpose of this guide is to outline the basics of the updating process in an attempt to address the challenges associated with water point mapping process and allow the methodology to be replicated. The tool is a paper-based approach that follows the Government of Tanzania’s usual reporting hierarchy.

This guide reflects WaterAid Tanzania’s experience in pioneering Water Point Mapping updating in Tanzania. WaterAid has built up a reputation as an expert on WPM and has accumulated considerable experience through its involvement in a range of different mapping activities in East Africa and elsewhere.

This Strategy sets the direction of the Rural Water Supply Network (RWSN) for the next three years. It explains what we are trying to achieve, how, why and who. The four themes from the previous strategy will continue, with some changes of focus, and "Mapping & Monitoring" becomes a cross-cutting topic.

This is not the definitive final version so may be subject to change over the next few weeks or months.

Author:
Year of Publishing: 2014
Publisher:
Institution: University of Oxford

Institutional transformations are required if Africa is to deliver the universal Human Right to Water to 275 million rural people without improved water services. Improving the reliability of one million handpumps which should deliver drinking water to over 200 million rural Africans will be a major contribution to translating water rights into measureable results. This study tests a new maintenance service model over a one year period in rural Kenya using mobile-enabled data to improve operational and financial performance by reducing risks at scale.

International monitoring of drinking water and sanitation shapes awareness of countries‘ needs and informs policy, implementation and research efforts to extend and improve services. The Millennium Development Goals established global targets for drinking water and sanitation access; progress towards these targets, facilitated by international monitoring, has contributed to reducing the global disease burden and increasing quality of life. The experiences of the MDG period generated important lessons about the strengths and limitations of current approaches to defining and monitoring access to drinking water and sanitation. The methods by which the Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) of WHO and UNICEF tracks access and progress are based on analysis of data from household surveys and linear regression modelling of these results over time. These methods provide nationally representative and internationally comparable insights into the drinking water and sanitation facilities used by populations worldwide, but also have substantial limitations: current methods do not address water quality, equity of access, or extra-household services. Improved statistical methods are needed to better model temporal trends. This article describes and critically reviews JMP methods in detail for the first time.

The Rural Water Supply (RWSN) Dgroup for Water Point Mapping has enjoyed lively discussion since its launch in August 2012. Although mapping is still in its pilot-phase in many countries, WASH programmes and projects are increasingly using mapping as a tool to support their work. This report synthesises the online discussions that took place in 2012, highlighting the experiences and lessons learned.